5am and I am up to plan lessons while also mumsnetting.
Anyway, on the sacking of teachers: it really is fairly easy, as is breaking a teacher to the point of them quitting.
I refer you to the points many pages ago where we pointed out that the job is never done, no matter how much work we put in. There is always something that won't be done.
So, say you are a manager and want one of your team out.
The easiest way is to give them an impossible timetable (at secondary level, this could be requiring someone to teachacross a multitude of rooms, preferably at opposite ends of the school, then berate them for not being prepared at the start of lessons, ready to greet the students or for books going lost from a room they taught in the lesson before.
Or giving them 15+ classes in a core subject and then remarking that, 4 weeks in (when formal observations usually start), they do not know the details of all students - names of 450+ students, their needs, who is classed as Pupil Premium, EAL, Looked After, Young Carer, who needs which colour sheets etc. Easy one to fail an observation on.
Or giving a teacher mainly bottom sets to teach, which usually come with a reluctance to work and poor behaviour by students, then failing them on poor behaviour management or lack of progress of a few students who may only turn up every 3-4 lessons. Alternatively, observing them deliberately with a set known across the school to be poorly behaved.
Or requiring them to teach in an area they are not qualified in - say, giving a Chemistry teacher half a timetable of History, or asking a PE teacher to teach English Literature.
Or doing spot-checks of books frequently, knowing that the marking policy is almost impossible to adhere to consistently across every class. Maybe pick up on the fact that little Johnny, who never even brings a pen to school, has failed to underline the headings in his book. That, after changing sets 3 times, Penny does not have the same colour book/ tracking/ amount of stickers as Laura, who has been in the set from day 1. Or even berate a teacher for marking they have not done, because the student just changed into their set and had a supply teacher for a term, who is not required to mark at secondary level.
Or formally observe a teacher as per timetable, being, say, an English specialist SLT member observing a Physics lesson and failing said teacher, because you yourself did not understand the lesson content of a year 11 class.
Observations (usually 2-3 per year, on top of many mini-observations called "Learning Walks") are very high-stakes, done by one person, who is typically not knowledgable in that subject. One poor observation can lead to "support" being offered for 6 weeks, typically consisting of many more written observations and work scrutinies, more time being taken up by chats about said lesson observations instead of being given over to planning etc.
Or putting a person on a temporary contract, with the promise of being made permanent after completion. Only to put them on another temporary contract. And again. And again...
You can easily break a person doing any of the above.
All of which I have seen happen to colleagues in my time. They were either expensive, have had a period of illness or small children, who required the occasional day off for care, stuck up for their/ colleagues' rights, happened to have the misfortune of being seen to slip up, even just once, from which a whole opinion was then formed, were too honest with parents, ...
I know of two who have been so broken by being "managed out" that, to this day, they still require counselling and medication just to get by. One who had their confidence so utterly destroyed they gave up. Teacher suicide rates are high.
But yes, teaching is, of course, a job for life... 